Silicon Valley tech worker was the Ukrainian mom lying dead on street in brutal photo that sparked outrage
Tatiana Perebeinis, 43, her daughter, Alise, 9, and son, Nikita, 18, were killed by Russian forces as they tried to flee the town of Irpin, a suburb about 15 minutes from Kyiv. Ukrainian soldiers tried to resuscitate a friend who was with them but he later died.
Lynsey Addario/The New York TimesA Silicon Valley employee and her children are the subjects of photos so devastating that they shocked the world: a Ukrainian family lying dead on the pavement, killed by Russian mortar fire while trying to flee the conflict.
The images of Ukrainian soldiers tending to the bloodied bodies of a woman, her teenage son and young daughter, and their friend ran on the front page of the New York Times this week, along with online videos of the unprovoked attack on civilians. They stirred international outrage and a pledge from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to punish the perpetrators. “There will be no quiet place on Earth for you,” Zelenskyy said. “Except for the grave.”
Palo Alto startup SE Ranking confirmed Wednesday that the photo depicts its chief accountant, Tatiana Perebeinis, 43, along with her daughter, Alise, 9, and son, Nikita, 18, who were killed by Russian forces as they tried to flee the town of Irpin, a suburb about 15 minutes from Kyiv. They had just dashed across a partially destroyed bridge over the Irpin River into Kyiv when a mortar hit.
“For me as her colleague it’s a tragedy to see those pictures,” Ksenia Khirvonina, the company’s spokeswoman, told The Chronicle. “They show that it’s real. On the other hand, they prove that (the) Russian army and Putin himself are monsters who deserve no mercy for their doings.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin insists that his forces are not targeting civilians trying to flee.
Perebeinis “was a very friendly, brave, courageous woman with a great sense of humor; she always cheered everyone around her up; she was truly like a big sister to all of us,” Khirvonina said. She spoke from Dubai, where she had fled on Feb. 23 from Ukraine, where about half of the company’s 110 workers are based.
“She always had answers to all our questions, even the most stupid ones, about personal finances or taxes or how to upgrade your visa cards; she had answers to everything,” Khirvonina said. “We are so shocked, saddened, devastated, angry. There are no words to describe our emotions, we are so heartbroken.”
When the Russian invasion started, Perebeinis initially stayed in Irpin, where she and her family lived, because her mother was sick and her son, at 18, was in the age group of males not allowed to leave the country in case they are needed to defend Ukraine, Khirvonina said. Perebeinis didn’t want to leave her son behind, Khirvonina said. He had just started university this year.
“She always talked about him, how smart he was,” Khirvonina said. “She was a great mother; giving her kids everything she could.”
But after Irpin was surrounded, a bomb hit the family’s building, right above their apartment.
“They couldn’t stay in their apartment anymore; they spent all their time in the basement where it was cold with no food, light, heat, anything,” Khirvonina said.
Perebeinis decided to use the promised “safe passage” that Russia had agreed to for civilians to flee.
“But then Russian troops started firing on innocent civilians, and that’s how they got killed,” Khirvonina said. She doesn’t know where the family was headed.
Sergii Perebeinis, Tatiana’s husband, who was not with them as they tried to flee, shared photos of his wife and children on his Facebook page.
Tatiana Perebeinis (center), 43, chief accountant of SE Ranking, along with her son, Nikita, 18, and daughter, Alise, 9, were killed by Russian forces as they tried to flee the town of Irpin, a suburb about 15 minutes from Kyiv.
Provided by Sergii PerebeinisThe Russians “took them all,” he wrote on Facebook.
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